


Still I Grieve

by Mayphoenix



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayphoenix/pseuds/Mayphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Freestyle/free form; raw, like John's emotions.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Still I Grieve

**Author's Note:**

> Freestyle/free form; raw, like John's emotions.

This is where it started.  
  
This is where it ended.  
  
I stand outside St. Bart’s, on the sidewalk where I last saw you.  It’s been a year, and while I know there are no stains I swear I can still see the blood, your dark hair wet with it, crimson streaks of it across your pale face with your eyes so blue in stark contrast.  
  
Inside is where we first met.  I walked in through a door and saw you hunched over a microscope, black suit against sterile white, thin wraith of pure elegance as you reached out to accept my mobile phone.  For a second, our fingers touched, the first time of many to come.  You took one look at me and knew everything about me, and yet over the course of our acquaintance I feel like I knew nothing about you.  Every time I thought I had you figured out, you changed, chameleon, wind, shifting, unpredictable.  
  
You were there for me.  You knew I craved danger.  You knew I was lost.  You found me, but at the same time we found each other.  We needed each other, to restore balance to our separate worlds and bring order to chaos with more chaos.  I grounded you and you cut me free from the tethers of conformity.  We were perfect together.       
  
I will not go back to your grave.  I can’t go back to the flat.  I can’t be in a place where you’re not alive and living.  Sometimes I think of leaving London because it reminds me too much of you, of everything you made me see once you opened my eyes and taught me to observe.  
  
I want to let you go but I can’t.  These threads that bound me to you are tangled and strong, and the more I fight them the harder they are to break.  I am now tied to my grief for you, my loss, the aching emptiness where you used to be and still are.  Inside, a voice continues to scream – _come back, come back, don’t leave me alone_ – and I can’t make it stop, I can’t silence it.  It becomes the heavy beat of my heart, the rush of air moving in and out of my lungs.  All the things you were to me.  Breath.  Life.  
  
Why did you have to go?  
  
In the grate on the wall there are rolled pieces of paper, notes left by your fans.  There are flowers, and flags, and dear God, even a tiny deerstalker dangling from a keychain.  I smile faintly at them, at the graffiti that always appears before the hospital can scrub it away. _I Believe in Sherlock Holmes.  Moriarty was Real._ And the new one.  
  
 _Stay strong, John_.  
  
I could tell myself it was a message from you.  I could lie to myself, fool myself into thinking you were still around, because it’s what I want, more than anything, I want you to be alive.  I want you to come up behind me right now, put your arms around me, and pull me back against your body.  I want to feel your warm lips near my ear and hear you say my name again.  I want to close my eyes and when I open them again I want you to be there.  
  
Please, Sherlock.  Please, just…be there for me again.  



End file.
